Perhaps I am being too hard on Foer because I enjoyed the book a great deal. Each chapter is eminently readable and provides useful insights into the culture and politics of the country it touches on. If you are a soccer buff or particularly knowledgeable about the game's history and rivalries much of this might be familiar territory. For the novice or the fan of the game without an encyclopedic knowledge of its history, however, Foer provides a trip around the world of soccer. He touches on the long history of the game, the violent, and often hate-filled, rivalries that burn themselves into the culture, and the larger than life personalities that are at the center of these clubs. From the Serbian hooligan Arkan who provided Slobodan Milosevic with shock troops; to the all Jewish Hakoah of Vienna soccer team that was briefly the toast of inter-war Europe; to the Nigerian soccer stars who find themselves trapped in the obscure mathematical (and artic cold) world of Ukrainian soccer; to the up and down and up again life of (perhaps the world most famous soccer player) Pele; Foer entertains his readers and sheds light on how the rest of the world lives.
Given all of the above, it is fair to say that I don't really hold the book's title against him. Part history, part cultural commentary, part political analysis, and part diehard sports fan evangelism, How Soccer Explains the World is an interesting and thought provoking read even if it doesn't explain the world.
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